The week the Obama backlash started

As the Democratic frontrunner racks up one primary victory after another, American newspapers and TV shows have started to pick over his past and ridicule his rhetoric. But will this come too late to restore the fortunes of Hillary Clinton, who needs to win both Ohio and Texas to stay in the race?

Back in 1995 it would have seemed like meeting just another group of left-wing academics in liberal Chicago. Barack Obama, then about to be an Illinois state senator, was taken to an activists' gathering at the house of William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

So far, so innocuous. Except now Obama is running for president and Ayers and Dohrn - both Illinois professors - were once members of the Weather Underground, a radical Sixties group that planted bombs across America.

Thus the long-forgotten meeting resurfaced late last week in a detailed news story on the respected politics website Politico under the blaring headline: 'Obama once visited 60s terrorists.'

For a candidate long used to an overwhelmingly positive press, it was a jarring headline. But with Obama's new status as the Democrats' clear frontrunner, a media backlash is now showing clear signs of gathering pace.

The Politico story was not alone last week. In the New York Times, two influential columnists weighed in with brutal attacks against Obama. David Brooks called him a 'trophy messiah' and Paul Krugman claimed Obama's campaign was '...dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality'. Meanwhile, in the Boston Globe, Obama supporter Margery Eagan expressed her own doubts about her pick. 'I'm nervous because John McCain says Obama is an "eloquent but empty call for change" and in the wee, wee hours a nagging voice whispers: "Suppose McCain's right,' Eagan wrote.

Nor was it confined to print. On television, ABC's respected Nightline show ran a segment on Obama's often wildly enthusiastic supporters and compared 'Obama-mania' to the Beatlemania of the Sixties. Anchor Terry Moran asked: 'Is this a political movement or a personality cult?' On cable channel MSNBC, a hapless Obama backer, Texan state senator Kirk Watson, was harangued by host Chris Matthews to 'name any' of Obama's legislative achievements. When Watson failed, the clip became a huge Youtube hit.

Many observers say that a backlash against Obama was inevitable after 11 straight wins against his rival, Senator Hillary Clinton, had sent the former First Lady's campaign into a desperate tailspin. 'We are going to see this backlash. The press has been enthralled by Obama, but I have no doubt that is going to change,' said Professor Jack Lule, a communications expert at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania.

Obama's relationship with the press has been almost entirely positive so far. Paradoxically, this comes despite his campaign team adopting a distant approach to many reporters assigned to cover him. Unlike Clinton, who now makes a point of personally chatting to the media following her, Obama is kept at arm's length from reporters.

But that has not prevented a slew of positive coverage. 'He is a unique candidate. He is a path breaker. That makes it harder for reporters to treat him like a normal candidate,' said Professor Cary Covington, a political scientist at the University of Iowa.

That phenomenon has undoubtedly exasperated the Clinton camp, who frequently complain that Obama's record has not been examined in the same detail as her own by the press pack. Yet that is now likely to change.

Though Obama holds only a narrow lead in the number of delegates needed to win the nomination, all the political momentum is with him. Clinton has to look back all the way to Super Tuesday for her most recent victory. Nor has she even come close since then: Obama's recent wins have all been routs. For the first time Clinton's key staff are using the F-word - frontrunner - to describe their opponent. But at the same time they are hoping that will finally lead to intense media pressure on Obama that could yet unseat him. 'Mr Obama is the frontrunner. There will be increased scrutiny on him and his qualifications to be president,' said top Clinton strategist Howard Ickes.

That scrutiny will lead to more stories like that of Obama's meeting with the former Weather Underground militants. It will also lead to a willingness to pounce on any perceived mistakes from the Obama camp. Thus last week Obama's wife, Michelle, faced criticism after she appeared less than patriotic at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. 'For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country,' she said. The remark was seized on as anti-American by many commentators, forcing the campaign to stare down a rare surge of criticism and clarify the remarks.

The incident served to show how the media landscape is changing for Obama. At another rally, in Dallas, Obama paused to blow his nose and received a round of cheers. That prompted withering headlines, too. 'Even blowing his nose, Obama gets applause,' snickered the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper from Obama's adopted hometown.

All over America, reporting teams are now investigating Obama's record, matching the long-term efforts of Clinton 'opposition research' workers. 'Right now, there are people digging all over. I have no doubt about it,' Lule said.

However, the key question is whether there is anything to find. So far, little that is dramatically new and damaging has emerged. The New York Times researched an article on Obama's self-confessed drug use while he was at college, but the story, when published, actually appeared to find less evidence of drug use than the candidate had already admitted to in his autobiography.

The second vital area is that time is growing short for the dynamic of the campaign to shift. Attention is now firmly focused on 4 March, when Texas and Ohio - both rich in delegates - go the polls. Clinton's campaign admits that she needs to win both. At the moment, she is narrowly ahead in both races. But Obama's support tends to surge as election day nears. In short, Clinton needs an Obama gaffe or a hitherto unknown scandal. 'The real thing here is whether the press can get at Obama in time to change things. Will that dynamic shift come before he gets the nomination or afterwards, when it will be too late for Clinton?' said Professor Covington.

Certainly Clinton's camp is revving up and preparing for a last-ditch fight. She has sharpened up her message, portraying Obama and his campaign as naive and idealistic, telling rallies of supporters that: 'It is time to get real.'

At the same time, a group of Clinton supporters is seeking to bypass campaign finance laws and set up a group called the American Leadership Project. Because the group is not officially linked to the campaign, it can take in large donations from wealthy individuals. It is aiming to raise $10m and its adverts will start to air in Ohio and Texas tomorrow.

The move has outraged Obama campaign officials, who have compared it to the Swift Boat group that campaigned against John Kerry in 2004's presidential race. David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said: 'We are tired of swift boat-style groups and of smear campaigns.'

Such tactics also cannot hide the fact that the Clinton camp is in deep trouble. Much of the top leadership still remains deeply split over the right tactics in the final days before Texas and Ohio go to the polls. Even after a leadership shake-up, the campaign is divided into supporters of pollster Mark Penn, who favour continuing to emphasise Clinton's experience, and others who want a new aggressive campaign. The latter are centred on Ickes, a strategist notorious for his pugilistic attitudes. It was a split that was evident in last Thursday's debate, where Clinton made a few pointed jabs at Obama, but declined several opportunities to attack him outright.

At the same time, the campaign is losing the financial battle. Figures released last week show a massive mis-spend of money, including millions of dollars to its own campaign pollsters and media experts. A list of debts and bills include thousands of dollars spent on luxury hotels in Las Vegas, almost $100,000 on catering from an Iowa supermarket and $11,000 on pizza. By contrast, Obama's top staffers, who are in charge of what is now the frontrunning campaign, are paid much less than Clinton's operatives and the campaign is awash in cash.

But many experts believe Clinton should not be written off. 'She is behind. There is no question of that. But she can still win it,' said Covington. Yet now her last best chance may rely on the hunger in the media for a fresh way of writing about the campaign, seeking to cast Clinton as the 'come from behind' underdog. It worked in New Hampshire, where she confounded the pollsters with an unexpected win. Now she needs to do it again.